The Gryffindor struck quick as a snake, the bed curtains parting just wide enough to admit his hand and his head. The hand was already waving a wand, the head already whispering the necessary hexes, and by the time Severus realized he wasn’t having an extraordinarily vivid dream, Black had spelled him silent, blindfolded, and bound.

What…what’s going on? he mumbled. Or tried to: his lips moved, but nothing came out. He attempted to sit up, but that didn’t work, either — his wrists, thighs and ankles had been tied tightly together, and all he could do was flop about uselessly on the bed.

Then he felt himself lifted. No, not lifted. Levitated. His stomach did a tiny flip-flop as he was put more or less vertical, though his balance was uncertain and his feet did not touch the floor. An arm encircled his waist, holding him until he steadied. Then, something odd: a sensation of something being dropped over him, something like a large cloth, soft and nearly weightless.

“Let’s go, arsehole,” Black growled in his ear, and a slight push propelled him forward, drifting along at the Gryffindor’s side.

He was still too stunned to struggle (even if he’d been able to whilst floating three inches off the ground), but his brain was waking up fast. How the hell had Black gotten all the way up to his dorm, to his bed,without getting caught? Where was Black taking him? How were they going to get there? What if they were seen? As consummate a liar as Severus himself was, even he would have been hard-pressed to explain to a passing prefect or teacher why he was floating a classmate along the corridors long after curfew, or why said classmate had a black rag across his eyes, ropes around his arms and legs, and what felt like a tablecloth over his head.

Severus almost hoped they were seen. He didn’t like this, not at all. Gods knew, it was hardly the first time Sirius Black had ever tied or gagged or even blindfolded him, but this didn’t feel like any of those times. It didn’t feel right. And he had heard the anger in Black’s growl, and he didn’t have to Reach to feel it, throbbing through the other boy in hot red waves.

He knew why Black was angry with him. Severus had been avoiding him for over a week, trying to screw up the courage to tell him they were through. He wasn’t particularly worried anymore about Black’s reaction — the prospect of incurring Sirius Black’s wrath rather paled in comparison to ultimatums from the Dark Lord — but he knew Black would badger him with countless, wearying questions, questions he could not answer. Would not answer. He didn’t trust Black; he had never trusted Black and he never would, and three months of brilliant sex and one expensive gift wasn’t about to change that.

Of course, Black didn’t know any of this. All he knew was that his favorite fucktoy was suddenly playing hard-to-get, and, obviously, he didn’t like it. And, bold Gryffindor idiot that he was, if the mountain wouldn’t come to Merlin, Merlin was by-gods going to go to the mountain.

A flash of irritation cut through Severus’s unease. Fucking Gryffies. They all thought the world owed them whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it. Did Black think he was the only one troubled by the situation? Severus didn’t like it, either — he’d been wanking so often over the past week that his prick cringed when it saw his hand approaching, and he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days — but he wasn’t running about breaking into dorms and floating people out of their beds like balloons.

They continued on, the Gryffindor setting a fast pace. They made so many twists and turns that Severus lost count; by the time they reached their destination, he was mildly nauseated and thoroughly confused.

He heard Black mutter “Alohomora,” and heard the click of a door latch. He was relieved when Black released the levitation spell and his feet touched solid ground, but not for long: Black gave him another shove and he stumbled forward, his bound hands shooting straight out in front of him to keep himself from falling on his face.

The cloth and blindfold were yanked from his head. He screwed his eyes shut quickly and eased them open again, expecting sudden, painful brightness, but even compared to the utter blackness behind the blindfold, the room was very dark. High stone walls, cold stone floor, all of it lit by only three or four sconces. Severus frowned, puzzled. It looked like the dungeons, but he knew that couldn’t be. He hadn’t lost his bearings that badly; his dorm was down in the dungeons, and he knew they had climbed several staircases to arrive here. Wherever here was.

He didn’t waste much time pondering it, however. There was a strange-looking scaffold in the very center of the room, and that took most of his attention. It slanted forward at a steep angle, not quite parallel to the floor. It was a simple A-shaped frame, two long beams meeting at the top and spaced far apart at the bottom, with a wider slat connecting them in the middle. Leather straps dangled ominously from these intersections, silver buckles swinging and winking back the dim light.

Severus went cold. That scaffold was for him — nobody was going to mount such a Medieval-looking contraption willingly, and he was the only guest at this little party sporting the latest in magical bondage. Black was going to tie him to that thing and spank him, no doubt, spank him and probably fuck him, too — and he was going to do it in front of them. Black was angry with him, and this was Severus’s punishment, to be paddled like a wayward child and taken like a whore in front of his most bitter enemies.

He swallowed hard. What if Black removed the silencing spell? What if Black made him cry out, made him whimper and sob and snarl helplessly, pleading for mercy? It wouldn’t be the first time. Severus had an extremely high threshold for pain, and he had remarkable self-control, but Black had learned his limits by now, and he knew how to play with them, how to push and tug at them until they snapped, how to bend Severus back and forth between pleasure and pain until Severus wanted them snapped.

That brought an even worse thought. What if Black made him come? The mere thought of being brought to an orgasm in front of these hooting, jeering animals made Severus want to conjure a hole in the floor and dive into it headfirst.

“Snape. I’m talking to you.”

Black’s voice. Sharp. Sudden. Almost directly in his ear, making him jump. He turned his head, aiming his best glare like a dagger…and then his eyes went wide as Black slapped him across the face.

It wasn’t a very hard slap — indeed, he heard it much more clearly than he felt it — but it still shocked him to his core. Black had slapped his ass plenty of times over the last several months (and usually with Severus’s tacit encouragement), but he had hit him in the face only once, on that very first night — and only then because Severus had spit on him.

Why did you do that? he asked, but all that sounded in the room was the echo of the blow and another moronic burst of laughter close behind him. Potter and Pettigrew.

He spun and stared the daggers at them. As he’d suspected, Lupin was there as well, hovering in the gloom, a bit back from the others, and the sight of him lit the first real flickers of anger in Severus’s gut. Lupin wasn’t laughing, and his face was largely obscured by shadows, but Severus knew the look he was wearing without even seeing it. No doubt it was the same look the spineless, mealy-mouthed bastard always wore when his friends were tormenting Severus Snape: troubled and ashamed, guilty, but helpless. Severus had recognized (and despised) that look the instant he’d first seen it, on that long-ago first train ride to Hogwarts: it was the same look his mother always wore when his old man was working him over.

Black’s hand shot out, twisting in his hair and dragging his head around again. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he snarled. He lowered his voice and hissed: “Or is looking at me as repulsive as fucking me?”

His eyes were slits, his face white and grim, and Severus’s anger vanished in a wash of fear. Black was not laughing. Normally, Black would have been chortling right along with the other two idiots, acting as if he were having the time of his life, but not now. Now his face was set hard, with rage and something else, something Severus couldn’t define. Whatever it was, it was frightening. It suggested that perhaps he was in for something considerably worse here tonight than just a spanking.

As if to confirm this, Black looked at Pettigrew and said, “The charges, please.”

Pettigrew giggled. He stepped forward and reached into the pocket of his Muggle jeans (so tight they were practically plastered to his fat can, Severus noted viciously) and pulled out a roll of parchment. He cleared his throat, looked around, giggled again, and finally read:

“Severus Snape, you stand before this tribunal accused of debauchery, deceit, and conspiracy to kidnap a Gryffindor for unsavory purposes. You stand further accused of being a faithless, two-faced slut who’d take it up the arse from the Whomping Willow if you thought it would get you anywhere. Also, you’re an ugly git.” More giggles. “How do you plead?”

Severus stared at him blankly. Conspiracy to kidnap a Gryffindor? What the hell was that supposed to mean?

“Sorry, Snivellus, what was that?” Black leaned forward, cupping a hand to his ear. “‘Guilty,’ you say?” Before Severus could even blink, Black turned back to Pettigrew. “The accused pleads guilty as charged, Your Honor. Please pronounce sentence.”

Pettigrew cleared his throat again and lifted his chins, no doubt trying to look dignified and imposing. To Severus, he looked like a bullfrog scoping a juicy fly. “The accused is hereby sentenced to be fucked by a dog.”

Severus’s jaw dropped. Pettigrew and Potter burst into fresh bellows of laughter, even Lupin had a slight smile on his face, and, for one short but giddy moment, Severus felt relieved. It was all just a joke. A bad joke, juvenile as all their jokes were, but just a little one-act play they had cooked up to scare him because Black was pissed and the others were bored.

Then he looked back at Black, and his heart sank. Black still wasn’t laughing; Black was still looking at him with hatred, that old, virulent hatred he hadn’t seen in months. To Black, at least, it was no joke — he was in charge here, and he looked furious.

But was he furious enough to actually stand by and watch a dog, a mindless, slobbering, grinning dog, defile a fellow human being?

As a whole, wizards were remarkably uninhibited sexually — they were much more tolerant than their Muggle counterparts of same-sex relationships, for example — but bestiality was their one universal taboo. Purebloods, with their inherent mistrust of any creature that was not a pureblood wizard, had a particular horror of the act, and Severus was no exception: the thought of being fucked by an animal made him almost physically ill. It also terrified him. If anyone found out he had had sex with a dog, even forced sex such as this, he could be sent to Azkaban for the rest of his life. And he’d consider himself lucky — as recently as fifty years ago, he would have been put to death for it.

He began to struggle.

Black watched for a minute or two, that wretched fury stamped blank on his face and cold in his eyes. Then he said, “Put him on the rack.”

Potter and Black moved forward and flanked him, each of them grabbing an arm. Severus continued to fight both them and the ropes binding him, but it did no good. They half-dragged, half-wrestled him to the scaffold in the center of the room and strapped him to it, face down. His arms were extended above his head and his wrists buckled together at the top of the “A”; his legs were spread wide along the legs of the frame and his ankles tied in place. The wide slat connecting the two sides pressed against his belly, hard and cold even through his night shirt, and another strap was drawn across the small of his back, anchoring him firmly in place.

Even though he knew it was futile, he fought as hard as he could. He managed to bite Pettigrew — he tasted as bad as he looked, the useless pudding — and got in a couple of good hard kicks when they untied his ankles to spread his legs. One of them caught Potter square in the gut, and the Gryffindor’s grunt of pain and surprise sent a savage joy through him, a joy undiminished even when Potter retaliated with a stinging slap to his ass and a muttered, “Oh, you’ll pay for that, you slimy little shit.”

He continued to struggle even after he was bound, flexing against the straps, testing their strength and his mobility. They seemed very strong, and he couldn’t move more than an inch up or down, back or forward or even sideways. His head was framed by his arms and the triangle part of the “A” shape, and he couldn’t see much past the line of his own shoulder on either side.

Then Black’s hand fisted in his hair again, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders groaned in painful protest as his head was dragged up and back, forcing him to look straight into those icy grey eyes.

“If you’re wondering why I didn’t help them,” Black said, “I didn’t want to touch you. I know how sick it makes you when I touch you, and since you’re our guest here tonight” — a cold smirk came and went, quick as a shadow — “I’ll try not to offend you by putting my filthy Gryffindor hands on you any more than I have to.”

Again, Severus was lost. And frustrated. He felt like he had walked into the middle of a play and was the only one with no idea what was going on. I know how sick it makes you when I touch you. Where did that come from? Yes, he had been ducking Black lately, and no doubt Black was feeling frustrated and insulted, but this was a definite over-reaction. Childish, actually. If one week without his Slytherin treat was enough to make Black so fucking melodramatic, he had rejection issues even Severus couldn’t match.

“Dishabilles,” Black said, still looking him dead in the eye. His night shirt vanished; cold air rushed over his body, prickling it into gooseflesh, and Potter and Pettigrew cheered.

Black let go of his hair. Gratefully, Severus let his head fall forward — then jerked it back in alarm as the top half of the scaffold dropped with a sudden lurch, bending him sharply at the waist. It fetched up with a jolt less than a foot from the floor, so close that his hair spilled across the rough stone surface like black ink. For a moment he was too sick and stunned to do anything but hang there, panting silently and trying very hard not to throw up.

Then Potter and Pettigrew hooted again, cutting through his shock and reminding him where he was. And how he was. He cringed at the realization of what he must look like to them, his legs held stiff and spread wide, his bare ass thrust boldly in the air. He was bent so severely that he was looking up at his cock and balls as they dangled, heavy and vulnerable, swinging slightly between his parted thighs.

“Paddy, I think I finally get what you see in him,” Potter chuckled. Severus saw a pair of denim-clad legs approach him from behind, and then he felt hands, hands even rougher than Black’s, begin caressing his ass. “What a rear end. Is it as tight as it looks?”

“Yes. Amazingly tight, actually, considering how many cocks he’s had rooting about up there.”

That sulky, spiteful tone again. That I-know-how-sick-it makes-you-when-I–touch-you tone. Severus caught it even through his growing fear, and his mind tossed around frantic possibilities. Was that what this was all about? Was Black jealous? How could he be? Black didn’t know about any of his other lovers, except Lucius. Gods, he didn’t have any other lovers besides Black and Lucius. All of the others — Bellatrix and Rudolpho, Avery and Rosier and Narcissa and Roselle — were just extensions of Lucius, stepping stones toward the dark benefactor Severus wasn’t sure he even wanted anymore.

“It’s brilliant.” The caresses turned rougher, Potter’s hands squeezing and kneading both cheeks now, hard enough to hurt. Severus couldn’t see his face, but he could hear the gruff arousal in his voice.

And in Pettigrew’s, when he spoke up. “Is it soft? It looks really smooth and soft.”

“Um—like your head,” Black snorted. Then he sighed and relented. “Come on, then, Wormy, and have a feel.”

Severus shuddered as Pettigrew’s hands, pudgy and sweaty and thoroughly repulsive, joined Potter’s. Wormy. Severus had no idea what that nickname was supposed to mean — or, for that matter, what any of the ridiculous names they exchanged meant, save Lupin’s— but it was perfect for Peter Pettigrew. He was wormy; Severus felt like every part of him that Pettigrew touched was left lightly coated in slime.

Then Potter shoved a finger up his ass, and had it not been for the silencing spell, Severus’s scream would have awakened half the castle. The penetration was totally dry and fiercely burning, the finger horny with calluses that abraded the delicate flesh inside him. When Potter began pumping, Severus felt like he was being scraped raw.

“What’s this little bump?” Potter asked. The finger found his prostate and scraped that, too, and Severus convulsed in agony. Either Potter mistook his reaction for pleasure or didn’t care, because he immediately did it again.

“Bump?” Black sounded bored.

“Inside him. When I rub it, he goes wild. His arse bunches up and his bung squeezes down on my finger.”

“Oh. That’s his prostate. It’s very sensitive. Like a girl’s clit. You rub it long enough, he’ll cream all over you. You don’t even have to touch his prick.”

“Yeah?” Potter sounded intrigued. He rubbed; Severus writhed. The pain was searing. Scorching. Throbbing. He closed his eyes, sweat trickling down his face despite the stone-cooled chill in the air, but they flew open again when he felt, then saw, Pettigrew’s moist hand curl briefly around his cock.

“You must not be doing it right, James,” Pettigrew said. “He’s not even hard.”

Potter said nothing, but the torturing finger hesitated, then stopped. Severus let out a shaky breath, too grateful to even care that it had been Peter Pettigrew to his rescue.

Severus tensed, fully expecting Potter to laugh that nasty laugh of his, say, “Brilliant!” and finger-fuck him more vigorously than ever. But Potter surprised him. “Well, lube him then. I want to make him hard.”

With another put-upon sigh, Black uttered the spell. Instantly, warm oil welled around Potter’s finger, soothing Severus’s raw passage, turning the painful throb into something low and soft and rather pleasant. The relief was so intense it was nearly erotic, and a hot shiver raked Severus from his head to his toes.

He began pumping his finger again, more slowly this time, stroking over the prostate with a newfound delicacy, a finesse that Severus found as disturbing as it was arousing. I want to make him hard, Potter had said, and he was succeeding, but it had been Severus’s experience that whenever James Potter wanted anything, it did not bode well for Severus Snape.

His body knew none of this; it felt pleasure, and it responded. More shivers raced up and down his spine, his hips jerked backward in tiny thrusts, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of his own cock coming to life under the arousing assault. He was both amazed and mortified as he watched it twitch every time Potter rubbed the quivering gland, as it flushed pink and swelled fat with his pounding blood.

“Jesus, Siri, are you sure he’s been screwing around behind your back?” Potter asked. “He’s tighter than a nun’s cunt, even with the oil.”

“I’m sure.” And then, something Severus didn’t understand: “I told you what he and his stinking Slytherin fuck buddies had planned for me.”

“Sirius…” Pettigrew, a bit breathless. “Can I have a go at him?”

“In a minute, Wormy.” It was Potter who answered. “I want to make him come” — his other hand came down into Severus’s view, wrapping firmly around his prick, thumbing sticky circles over the head — “and he’s so close I’d wager he can taste it.”

Severus bit his lip, silently imploring Pettigrew to keep talking. He was close, but he didn’t want to come. Not for Potter. Not ever for him.

“No,” Black said. “I don’t want him to come. Not yet. And you are being selfish, Prongs. You need to give someone else a chance.”

“Selfish?” Potter snorted. “Look who’s talking.” But he let go of Severus’s prick and withdrew his foraging finger, slowly, obviously reluctant. “You’ve had this arse all to yourself for months.”

“Yeah, me and half the House of the Snake.” Black’s voice was sharp. “Wormy, what are you waiting for, Christmas? Come on.”

Severus tensed again, expecting fresh pain, but he was well-stretched and well-oiled now, and he scarcely felt Pettigrew’s finger as it slid into him. Still, what he could feel was awful. Pettigrew’s finger was as repulsive as the rest of him, plump and soft, humid and almost spongy. It was like being fucked by a leper with a rotting cock.

“Oh!” Pettigrew nearly squeaked the word. “Oh, blimey, he’s hot in there! Sirius, is he always so hot in there?” And then, without waiting for an answer: “Can I fuck him with my dick?”

Severus froze.

“I thought ‘poofs’ disgusted you, Peter,” Black said.

Pettigrew didn’t reply. His free hand came up to cup and pet the firm buttocks. “So pretty,” he murmured. “So smooth.” His finger found the now-swollen prostate, but he didn’t stroke it as Potter had done; he stabbed at it, and a jolt of intense sensation shot through Severus. It wasn’t exactly pain, but it certainly wasn’t pleasure, and it made his teeth clench and his toes curl and every muscle in his body contract helplessly.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, did you see that? Did you see the way his arse closed up around my finger? Jesus, that’s wicked!” Like Potter, Pettigrew seemed utterly tickled by his reaction, and he jabbed again, and again, like a child wearing out the “Go” button on a fascinating new toy. He giggled at every spasm while Severus sobbed, dry-eyed and silent. “Sirius, you gotta let me fuck him.”

“No.”

“Oh, come on,” he wheedled. “I won’t make him come if you don’t want me to.”

“With that baby pecker, you couldn’t make him come if you fucked him all night,” Black dismissed. “That’s not the point. Nobody’s fucking him tonight, not even me. Tonight the sacred honey pot” — a dark chuckle — “is reserved exclusively for our friend Snuffles.”

Severus’s stomach tightened again. It’s just a joke, it’s just a joke, it’s just a joke… Perhaps if he repeated the words often enough, he would convince himself. Not that he actually needed much convincing. The look in Black’s eyes notwithstanding, Severus didn’t believe they would really let a dog…well, at him. He couldn’t believe it. It was just too sick, even for them.

“We have time,” Potter said. “Nobody knows about this room but us. And look at him, Paddy! That position is too bloody good to waste.”

Black did not immediately reply. Severus melted limply into the scaffold, shaking all over, trying to catch his breath and hold it for Black’s answer at the same time. He was relieved that Pettigrew had stilled his hand and stopped sending what felt like lightning bolts up his ass, but he was also scared that Black would grant this new request. If Potter and Pettigrew did get a chance to spank him, they would hurt him. And not in the careful, controlled way that Black did. They would hurt him the way his father did.

The cold voice of logic spoke up. If they spank you, they might lose interest in letting that dog at you. If there is a dog. And anything’s better than that.

But for the first time in his life, Severus took no comfort from that voice; for the first time in his life, he told it to piss off. He didn’t want logic right now, damn it — he wanted denial.

“All right,” Black said finally. “But not too long, and I don’t want any marks on him.”

Pettigrew had his finger out of Severus almost before Black finished speaking. Severus heard the faint, metallic chink of a belt being unbuckled, the slight whisper of it being slid from its loops. He grimaced. It figured they would want to use a belt. He hated the belt. It bit and burned like nothing else, and it could do actual damage, especially in the wrong hands. Black had only used it on him twice, but it had been one of his father’s favorite implements when Severus was younger. Before he had been graduated to the old man’s fists and the occasional Cruciatus Curse for punishment.

“No!” Lupin sounded aghast at the suggestion, and Severus swallowed contempt like bile. He honestly hated Lupin more than any of them. Potter and Pettigrew and Black were black-hearted bastards, but at least they weren’t hypocrites about it. “For God’s sake, can’t we just get this over with?”

Through his own spread legs, Severus saw Potter move into position behind him, bumping aside Pettigrew, who was still hovering over Severus’s arse like a mama niffler shielding her young. He heard a faint swish — the belt being drawn back, perhaps — and saw it strike Potter’s thigh as he tested it on himself. He heard it as well; he couldn’t help jumping at the sound, and Potter hissed out a pained, shaky laugh.

“That’s right, Sniv, you jump,” he said. “You’re going to be doing a lot of that tonight.”

The first lash was like a splash of scalding water. He could tell that Potter hadn’t pulled the blow at all, that he had, in fact, put the full force of his arm behind it — the pain had that kind of sharp, cutting quality. The biting sting of impact receded as the heat spread and sank deep into his flesh; then it was repeated as a second welt was raised across his ass, just under the first. This one was very low, along the crease between his bottom and his thighs, and it would have drawn a yell from him, had he been capable of producing any sound but the hard, dry pull of his breath.

After only a dozen smacks, Severus was writhing continuously; after twenty, he was rocking the scaffold with the force of his struggles. After twenty-five (his mind insisted on counting the blows, more out of habit than anything else), Potter stopped.

“What do you think?” he asked the others. He was breathing very hard, certainly harder than his slight exertions justified. Sadistic prick.

“Brilliant,” Pettigrew pronounced. He sounded a bit out of breath himself. “His bum looks even better red, don’t you think?”

“I wasn’t asking you, Wormy. Sirius?”

There was a pause — a quite deliberate pause, Severus was sure — before Black drawled, “Thighs are still too white.”

Bastard!

“All right.” Potter went back to work, laying enthusiastic stripes up and down Severus’s thighs until they were, presumably, an acceptable shade of red. Severus couldn’t see them, of course, but he could certainly feel them, and they felt very red indeed. By the time Potter stopped for good and Pettigrew took his place, they felt as though they would never be white again — he was absolutely on fire.

Then Pettigrew was laughing, “My turn, slimeball!” and the belt was biting into his ass again, making him forget all about his thighs. The pain was sharper than Severus had ever felt before, even with his father, and he had a moment’s panic, certain that the leather had actually cut him. He held his breath and waited for the telltale slither of blood running down his thighs; he had hardly released it when Pettigrew hit him again and he gasped again, his tender ass screaming in protest, his curse-knotted throat screaming right along with it.

After only a few blows, he was in agony. His ass felt not just hot but blistered, raw, as if Pettigrew was stripping the skin away, one layer at a time. The tears he had held in check for Potter were running freely down his face now; his cock hung limply, the pain far past the point of arousing him even against his will. He wouldn’t have believed it possible, but Pettigrew was hitting him even harder than Potter had, putting not just his arm but his whole body into it. Watching dazedly through the frame of his own shaking legs, Severus saw the fat little prick’s sneakered feet actually leave the floor with the force he brought to each blow.

With no way out and no end in sight, Severus did what he had always done when Augustus was hurting him: he escaped. He fled from the pain, retreating to a room in the back of his mind and raking the imagined door shut behind him. He knew this room well; he could picture it quite clearly, white and stark and clean. Sterile, even — but safe. Usually. As the pain grew worse, the room would get smaller and smaller, and the door would shake and rattle in its frame. Sometimes, if the pain was especially intense, the door wouldn’t hold, but most of the time it did. As with any skill, this one grew stronger with diligent practice— and Severus had had a lot of practice.

Though he didn’t know it, Severus was using a popular Muggle pain-management technique, although his magical and psychic gifts gave it a potency no Muggle therapist could have dreamed. Indeed, its power sometimes frightened him, and he only used it in the direst of circumstances. Some vague but undeniable instinct told him that if he went to that room too often, or lingered there too long, he would never get out. He would end up like his mother, trapped in a safe little room at St. Mungo’s, trapped in a safe little room in her mind.

But he needed the room now, and so he used it now. How long he was in there, he didn’t know, but the door held throughout. Once or twice, it opened a crack, and Severus threw all his mental weight against it, distracting himself from the pain that slipped through with ghastly visions of revenge. Imagine Pettigrew bloody and screaming. Imagine your fingers wrapped around his throat. Imagine plunging a knife into that soft slug’s body and feeling the hot gush of his guts pouring over your hands. Insane thoughts, keeping him sane.

The door held, but it was a close call; it was shivering like a live thing when the beating finally stopped, and the clean white room around him had gone small as a coffin. Exhausted and grateful, Severus fell against the door, and the mental image was so strong that he could feel it, its wooden surface cool and slightly rough under his tear-stained cheek. Dimly, as though from a great distance, he heard a voice.

Severus opened his eyes. He made the mistake of opening the door in his mind at the same time, and the pain rushed in, making his entire body shudder. His ass and thighs felt as though they burst into flame, and this time the sensation of blood running down his legs was real. Disbelief hit him like a slap. He cut me. He cut me. The useless great pig cut me.

A black and sweeping rage roared through him, wiping out pain and dismay and everything else in its path. You stinking, puling, crawling, toadying little waste. Just wait until I get my hands on you. They’ll have a job finding enough fucking pieces of you for a proper burial. I’ll mount your fucking head on my wall, I’ll feed your fucking liver to Fang and your fucking pussy little heart to the Dark Lord himself, and I’ll laugh myself blue every time you scream.

And not just Pettigrew, but all of them, all of them. Every-fucking-one.

“Oh, come on, Sirius! That’s not fair! You let James go a lot longer than that!”

“James didn’t cut him, you bloody fucking idiot!” And now there was no ‘nearly’ about it — Black was shouting. “You’re going too hard! He’s damn near unconscious, for fuck’s sake! And I told you I didn’t want any marks on him!”

If Pettigrew had a reply, Severus didn’t hear it; Black overrode the other boy, turning to Severus and chanting a healing spell. Severus was hurting too much to feel the usual tingle as his flesh was repaired, but the pain began to fade at once; within a minute or two, it was completely gone, as were the cuts and welts. Throughout the healing process, Black stroked his bottom until it felt smooth and white and cool again.

“Aw, why’d you do that?” Pettigrew protested. He sounded tremendously disappointed, and Severus would have sold his soul for just one minute alone with the fat bastard. Even half a minute would have done. “His blood was so pretty.”

“I just told you, idiot, I don’t want any marks on him. Or are you deaf as well as stupid?”

Pettigrew muttered something under his breath.

“What did you say?”

“I said I think you still fancy him!” Pettigrew burst out. “You don’t want to see him hurt, no matter how much you say you hate him. Shit! Why don’t you just powder his bum for him now, make sure he’s—”

There was a brisk, sharp sound, like a slap, and Pettigrew’s words ended in a gasp.

Finally, Lupin cleared his throat. “Look, Sirius, why don’t we just let him go? You’ve had your revenge. Even you seem to think he’s been punished enough. Why do we need to — to do the rest?”

“Because he deserves it,” Black said flatly. “Because I want him punished in the right way.”

More silence.

“Look, I’m not going soft on the little prick, if that’s what you lot think,” Black said. “I just don’t want him distracted, by pain or anything else. I want him to enjoy this.” Another exquisitely soft stroke across Severus’s bottom, tender, feather-light. “It’ll drive him crazy if he enjoys it.”

“Then let’s do it,” Potter said.

Severus saw the legs cluster together behind him once more. He felt Pettigrew’s hands on his ass again, spreading him, holding him open. He felt Potter’s fingers poking at his hole, smearing something thick and sticky over and then into it. He caught a faint, sweet odor he knew but couldn’t quite place, until Black’s earlier words came back to him and he put the pieces together. Tonight the sacred honey pot is reserved exclusively for our friend Snuffles.

Honey. It was honey Potter was spreading inside him and all over him, sticky sweetness coating him from the top of his cleft to the base of his balls. Not lube. Of course not. He was already slick with the oil Black had conjured inside him, and honey was too sticky to be a decent lubricant, anyway. Not lube, but bait. A sweet little treat for their mysterious four-legged friend.

Dogs did so love their sweets.

Severus closed his eyes. It was true, then. It was not a joke, not a scare tactic, not a bad dream. It was going to happen, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Curiously, now that he had accepted the truth of the situation, he felt no panic, no horror. Only the rage, burning in the pit of his stomach, hammering dully at the base of his skull.

“Snape.” Black’s voice; Severus felt a slight tug on his hair. He couldn’t lift his head at all now, not in this position, but he turned it as far as he could, defiantly ignoring the strain on his neck and shoulders. Black was crouched beside him, and they locked eyes, face-to-face. “I’m going to go get Snuffles now. I want you to meet him. He’s a smart dog, and a good dog, and I think you’re going to like him. Especially when he starts to eat.”

He smirked, obviously looking for a reaction. Severus just stared back coldly, keeping his face as bland and still as possible. The smirk faltered, then faded; when Black resumed speaking, he sounded cheated and furious.

“And when he starts fucking you, I want you to remember that you asked for this. You were the one who had to go and fuck things up, you two-faced bastard, and you’re getting just what you deserve.”

He grabbed Severus’s face in both hands and kissed him, tongue plunging in, fingers clenched in the long black hair. Severus was too startled even to bite.

It wasn’t a long kiss, but it was intense. Hard. Deep. Desperate. Severus got a single clear thought from him — You stupid Slytherin, why did you have to go and ruin it all? — and then Black pulled away. He released his grip on Severus almost violently, as if he’d discovered he was holding a poisonous spider or snake, and stood. His legs and feet disappeared from Severus’s limited view, and Severus was left with his mouth tingling and his mind racing and his heart pounding, waiting for his ordeal to begin.

As with most things, the waiting was the worst part.

He held himself as still as possible, listening for anything — the creak of the door, perhaps, or the rusty release of a cage he hadn’t seen earlier — that might signal the dog’s appearance on the scene. His skin rippled into gooseflesh; his nipples tightened; his muscles knotted and relaxed and knotted again. Now that the overwhelming pain of the strapping was gone, he became aware of other, lesser discomforts produced by his intensely awkward position. His back ached. His shoulders ached. The muscles in his thighs trembled and burned, and his wrists and ankles felt raw. Tension only made these small hurts worse, and he tried to relax as he peered through the human legs behind him, looking for the dog and not seeing it, still nursing a flicker of hope that somehow, somehow, he would be spared this ultimate degradation.

He saw it no more than twenty, maybe thirty, seconds before it began to lick him. He couldn’t see its head, but the bits he could see were the mismatched parts of a mongrel — slender, silky legs topped by a shaggy barrel chest — and a laugh, bitter and half-hysterical, welled up in his throat. The least they could have done was provide a pedigreed animal to rape him, instead of some mangy mutt off the street.

It padded softly across the scarred stones, moving toward him; an instant later, he felt it burrow between his ass cheeks, all wet, questing nose and velvety muzzle. It nuzzled and sniffed, whining softly; the nose pushed deeper, and Severus jumped. It was a very cold, wet, questing nose.

The first lick was light and rather tentative. The dog whined again, the sound muffled between Severus’s buttocks, and Severus blushed fiercely. He was sweating again, and he knew the dog was reacting as much to the hot, musky scent of him, the taste of him, as it was to the sweetness slathered over his flesh.

The boy’s salty taste was delicious mixed with the intense sweetness of the honey, and immediately, the dog wanted more. It swabbed its tongue along the twitching crack, following its nose inexorably to the place where the boy-smell was strongest. Oh, and there was more sweet here, too, and the dog sought it eagerly, pushing harder with its tongue, trying to dig out every scrap.

The tongue was wetter and bigger than a human tongue; it was rougher, too, and the slight friction felt marvelous on such delicate skin. The friction turned to warmth, the warmth to heat; the heat spread to his balls, and they swelled obligingly, feeding his hardening prick. He tightened his thighs until they trembled, clenched his ass until the muscles ached, trying to repel the relentless invasion, but his efforts only seemed to inflame the dog more — it gave another little whine and licked even harder.

The hole was so small! The dog could barely get its tongue in, and not nearly as deep as it wanted. It wished it could use its teeth, make the hole bigger, but it didn’t want to hurt the boy. The boy was getting excited, making more of that mount-me smell with every lick, and the dog didn’t want him to stop. He tasted too good.

It did wish the boy would stop moving, though, and it nipped lightly at the squirming rounds of flesh hugging its muzzle, growling again in a gentle warning.

Severus didn’t flinch. The tiny nip didn’t hurt, nor did it frighten him. He knew the dog didn’t want to harm him. He knew the dog only wanted—

He stopped squirming and stared wide-eyed in the dog’s direction, his battle between horror and arousal suddenly forgotten.

He knew what the dog was thinking.

How did he know what the dog was thinking?

He didn’t know how he knew — but he did. Perhaps thinking was too grand a term for the simple, wordless impressions he was getting, primitive wants and needs and intentions and reactions, but he was getting them nevertheless. Powerful urges. Primal emotions. Hunger. Pleasure. Frustration. Confusion.

Lust.

The dog was worrying at the boy’s hole now, plunging its tongue as deep as it would go, working it steadily inward with short, firm strokes. The tantalizing sweetness was almost all gone, but the smell of sex, the taste of it, was stronger than ever. The smell was male, which was wrong, and tinged with a slight, sour tang of fear, but it called to the dog powerfully just the same.

It had to get in there.

The tongue felt like it was attacking him now, the strokes harder and faster, frantic and ruthless. Severus was shaking all over, his hips jerking in time with every rasping lick: his senses were heightened by fear, and his inability to move or even speak allowed him no release, intensifying every sensation. The velvety muzzle caressed the insides of his buttocks; the soft chuffing of its breath tickled the tiny hairs around his hole. Occasionally, the dog’s excitement overcame it and it nipped at the resisting flesh in frustration, but even that was intensely exciting, the points of its teeth just grazing his skin, the slightest pinch of pain to balance the warm, wet pleasure.

It was disgusting. It was alien. It was incredible.

He felt his body responding and he fought it, trying to retreat to his room again, the safe room in his mind that had protected him so many times before. But it was much harder to escape pleasure than pain, he discovered — his body didn’t want to escape this, no matter who or what was causing it, no matter what his head thought of the situation.

The dog licked and nipped and nuzzled and probed until the boy was shuddering and panting much like a dog himself, breathing in silent, shallow bursts. The dog licked until all traces of the honey were gone — then it sniffed around, looking for other tasty parts.

It found his cock rather quickly.

What was this stuff? Juicy. Slick. Oozing out of the boy’s sex thing. It smelled good as well, musky and even saltier than the rest of the boy, and the dog’s tongue slipped out again, eager to taste.

Gasping, shaking, blinking sweat out of his eyes, Severus got his first look at the whole animal — big, black, and square — as the beast ducked its head between his spread legs. It nosed his balls, lapping up the last traces of honey, then sniffed briefly at his prick. The head of his cock was leaking profusely, and the dog looked almost comically surprised at the trickle of fluid suddenly wetting its muzzle. It sneezed; then it licked its muzzle and looked straight at him, a low growl of pleasure rumbling in its chest.

Severus would have sworn it was grinning at him.

The dog licked its nose again. Delicious. It licked the tip of the boy’s thing. Oh! Very delicious. Here, the scents of salt and musk and pleasantly bitter male rut were joined by a new smell, rich and sweet and more enticing than any of them. Blood. The boy’s sex-thing was swollen with it, bulging with it, pulsing with it. The dog could hear it rushing back and forth just under the skin, and it fought back the overwhelming urge to bite down, to tear into the tender flesh, to rip and chew. It didn’t want to hurt the boy. It wanted to mount the boy, even though his smell and taste were so male and so wrong, and the boy might not allow it if the dog hurt him first.

Severus shook his head frantically back and forth, long hair sweeping the floor, as he watched the dog nuzzle and mouth his cock. The long pink tongue stroked over the head, and Severus’s thighs jerked as if on a string. If it does much more of that, he thought jaggedly, I’m going to faint like some goosy virgin girl. And just as if the dog was getting his thoughts as well, the damned mutt did it again.

The dog had found the source of the tasty juices, and it licked them away as fast as it could. But the boy’s sex-thing wouldn’t stop moving; it swayed and swung and bobbed maddeningly away from the dog’s tongue at every stroke. The dog growled in frustration. It wished it could just put the boy on his back, trap the mean, teasing thing between its paws, and lap until the delicious juices stopped flowing.

Severus heard the growl, understood the dog’s frustration — and he was grateful for it. The sporadic swipes of the dog’s tongue across the head of his prick were intense and exciting, but the movement of his cock prevented the kind of relentless pressure and rhythm it had used on his…well, on other parts of him, and he thanked the gods for it. It was the only reason he wasn’t coming like a geyser all over the mutt’s furry face.

Tired of the futile chase, the dog chuffed impatiently and took the boy’s thing in its mouth. Took it gently, as carefully as it would have taken the scruff of a pup’s neck between its jaws, and not deep — just the round, wet knob at the end rested on its tongue. It closed its mouth just enough to hold the head still and began to lick again, fueled as much by triumph at its own cleverness as it was by hunger and sex.

Severus saw his cock slip into the dog’s mouth. Panic gripped him and he began to struggle — until he felt the big tongue sweeping over the head in hard, fast strokes, and he shuddered, seized, and came, so suddenly he hardly had time to cry out.

Then he fainted.

The dog got the first burst in the back of its throat and swallowed it easily, intrigued by this newest taste, and by the way the boy’s thing jumped around on its tongue; it licked harder, faster, coaxing the gushing spray. Even when the boy’s fear smell spiked, and his thing stopped spitting and went soft and boneless between its jaws, the dog kept licking, swabbing up every trace of that taste it could find, drawing out every last one of the tremors it could feel just under the boy’s skin.

Severus came back to consciousness with a jolt. An unpleasant jolt. Someone was touching him. He squirmed away from the touch, but he was tied or frozen or petrified or something, and he could hardly move at all. He opened his mouth to protest — Lucius, gods damn it, stop, you know how I hate that — and then he remembered.

The dog.

The dog had licked him until he came. The dog was still licking him, and now the contact was unbearable. Severus had always been extremely sensitive after an orgasm; he could never stand so much as a fingertip stroking him, let alone a warm, wet tongue caressing him from root to tip. His body twitched and writhed, his arms and legs went spastic; he fought frantically to escape, pulling at his restraints, lifting his hips as high as the strap across his back would allow. Which wasn’t very high at all.

Oh, gods, it was torture! It was tickling fingers on the soles of your feet, it was the itch deep in a healing bone, it was maddening and unreachable and unstoppable.

No, he tried to moan. Please — gods — stop — no more — He knew the dog couldn’t hear him, and he knew it wouldn’t have understood him even if it could, but he simply couldn’t help it. This was too much to bear.

The dog registered the boy’s distress immediately. It smelled the boy’s rising panic, heard his racing heartbeat, tasted the sweat of his fear. It knew it should stop, it knew the boy was no longer enjoying its attentions, but it couldn’t. The dog was excited now as well, as much by the boy’s useless struggles as by the creamy, soft, sweaty thing it still held loosely in its mouth, and it couldn’t stop until the boy was ready for it again, wanting it again, and smelling once more of heat and lust and surrender.

Sobs welled up from his belly. Chills coursed along his spine. His balls throbbed as they filled again, long before they were ready, and his cock gave a weary lurch and began to harden painfully once more.

The dog licked the boy’s thing until it was firm again, pulsing and plump again with the boy’s sweet blood. Instinct kicked in then, and the dog let the boy’s thing slip from its mouth with a regretful whimper. It backed out from under him, giving him teasing little licks here and there along the way.

Severus watched the dog’s retreat with wide eyes. He watched it rise up on its hind legs behind him and just glimpsed its erection, jabbing at the air like a red exclamation point. It was an impressive glimpse; it was a big dog.

Then the heavy paws landed on his back, the long, blunt nails raked painlessly over his skin as the dog scrabbled for balance, and the shaft thrust deep into him. There was no head to stretch him as there was on a human cock, and his body offered no resistance, taking the invasion effortlessly.

Shock closed over him like a shroud. Dark. Cold.

I’m being fucked by a dog, he thought, and the thought was remote and emotionless, as if it came from someone else’s head. I’m being fucked by a dog. I’m being fucked by a dog. He thought it over and over, and gods help him, he couldn’t seem to think anything else.

And had he actually believed he was prepared for this? That he could hide behind his anger and his visions of revenge and survive this, this…abomination?

Severus ran for the room in his mind.

Bitch oh sweet hot tight bitch greedy sucking little boycunt shuddering all around its cock demanding more thrusting back offering his heat mount me hump me take me those little thrusts were saying oh I’m so hot I want it you more please

The dog’s thoughts were lust-muddled mind-babble; its thrusts were fast and frantic. Its balls slapped his ass. Its lolling tongue dripped saliva on his back. Its loathsome cock seemed to grow bigger inside him, swelling as it sawed in and out. His own prick was stiff again as well, and it bounced against his belly with a meaty thwap! every time the dog’s shaft raked over his prostate.

Severus felt none of it. His body did, and it would feel the soreness and such the next day, but the real Severus, the essential Severus he carried in his own head, was far away from it all. He was in his room, and this time the door was not just locked but blocked, barred, and bolted.

Sweet sweet tight tight tight hot sweet BITCH—

The dog gave a brief howl and drove as deeply into Severus as it could, the force of its climax curving its spine. It froze, shuddered, and came.

Though he didn’t realize it at the moment, Severus came, too.

***

“Snape.”

He didn’t pass out this time, but he did close his eyes.

“Snape.”

Severus heard nothing. It was taking him a long time to come back to reality, longer than it ever had before. A frighteningly long time. The room in his head had gone dark this time as well as small, and his hands scrabbled blindly over the mental door’s surface, seeking the locks and bolts he’d engaged in sheer panic just moments before. A different kind of panic was surfacing now as he fumbled and pulled and pushed, all to no avail. Oh, gods, it was happening. What he had always dreaded, what he had always feared. He was trapped here. He would never get out. He would go insane.

“Snape!”

The voice roared into his head, slicing through his chorusing thoughts; at the same instant, Severus felt his mental hand close over something cold and hard on the door and twist. The door fell open abruptly, spilling him back into reality.

Some reality, anyway.

He blinked around him dazedly. Everything was different now. The stone walls and floor were gone, plain, worn wood planking in their place. There was no trace of the dog. There was no trace of Potter or Pettigrew or Lupin. The scaffold was gone, too, no longer supporting or restraining him. Severus didn’t remember its disappearing, but it must have done so: he was now lying on the floor.

He struggled to sit up. The shift of his body sent the dog’s seed, slimy and still hot, gushing out of him, and he leaned up on one elbow and vomited. Everything came up in hard spasms until there was nothing left to give and he was wracked by dry heaves. He retched until tears stood in his eyes and his throat burned and his belly ached; then he collapsed back on the floor, sliding away from the mess, wrapping his naked arms around his legs and drawing his knees up to his chin. He couldn’t stop shivering.

“Jesus Christ, Snape, what’s wrong with you?”

Now Black sounded scared. Severus didn’t care. Black muttered a short spell, and the mess on the floor disappeared; he muttered another, and Severus was dressed again, his nightshirt back in place. He couldn’t quite bring himself to be grateful.

“Here.” Black’s hand, in front of his face. It held a glass of water. “Drink this.”

The water looked wonderful. His throat was raw, and his mouth tasted vile. He lifted a trembling hand. He took the glass, drew it to his lips — then stopped, caught by the look on Black’s face.

Twenty years later, standing beside Sirius Black’s grave on a bright December night, Severus would wonder how different all that followed might have been, had he really seen that look, seen it and recognized it for the guilty, shamed, self-loathing look it was. But at that moment, he was in no condition to see it; at that moment, all he saw was disgust.

You bastard, he thought, and the anger that flooded him brought him strength. My sick convulsions disgust you, do they? I wonder how you’d do down here, you fuck. I wonder how you’d do with some mongrel’s drool drying on your back and its come running out of your arse.

He flung the water, glass and all, back in Black’s face. Black ducked with less than an inch to spare, but the expression on his face changed instantly, and it was priceless: total, speechless, white-as-parchment shock.

“Stay away from me,” Severus said. He barely recognized his own voice, raspy from disuse and shaking with unshed tears. Those tears were perilously close, but he would not, absolutely fucking would not, cry in front of Sirius Black. Not now, nor ever again. “Just…just stay away.”

He lurched to his feet and staggered toward the door. He wanted to run, but his legs weren’t anywhere near steady enough; he had to settle for a shambling, stumbling walk. He was almost there when a fierce cramp bit into his right thigh. He dropped to one knee, pounding the floor in frustration, the tears — they felt nearly hysterical at this point — closer than ever.

It didn’t matter, anyway. Black had easily beaten him to the door and was now blocking it, his arms folded, his wand in hand. The shock was gone from his face; it had been replaced with something Severus couldn’t quite name, though it looked insultingly close to amusement. “You have no wand, you don’t know where you are, and you can barely walk. How, exactly, do you think you’re going to get out of here?”

“Get out of my way.”

Black didn’t move.

“Gods damn you, move!”

“No. I’ll take you back. I can’t have you running about the halls by yourself. Not like this. It would raise too many questions.”

Severus lunged. Black’s wand went flying as he threw up his hands to block the attack. Severus landed on him and they fell to the floor, rolling and punching and fighting furiously. Not once during their struggle did it occur to Severus to try and retrieve the wand; he was half-mad with grief and rage and shock, and such practical thoughts were well beyond him.

Fortunately for him, it never occurred to Black, either.

They rolled again. Somehow Severus ended up on top, his knee between Black’s legs, his hands around Black’s throat. He squeezed. He felt no triumph as he saw Black’s eyes bulge and his face grow dark, only a desperate, hopeful relief. Just a bit more, he told himself. Just a bit more and he’ll have to let go, just a bit more and you’ll be free.

Black’s eyes were losing focus; the hands clawing frantically at Severus’s wrists were slowing, weakening. Black’s face was nearly purple, and a thin, whistling sound issued from his lips, a sound remarkably like the whine of an excited dog.

Just a little bit more—

Another cramp seized him. His thigh muscles knotted again, the pain sudden and sharp and sickening, and his grip faltered — only for a moment, but it was all the time Black needed. He grabbed Severus’s wrists and squeezed until the small bones ground together, until Severus hissed and let go of the Gryffindor’s throat. They rolled yet again, and then Severus was beneath the bigger boy, his wrists pinned to the floor on either side of his head.

Pinned. Trapped.

Strangely, he felt no fear. A peculiar numbness crept over him as he stared up into Black’s furious crazed face, a lethargic calm as dangerous as it was false. His thoughts floated out and away from him, drifting lazily back and forth, and he had a powerful urge to simply curl up in a ball, close his eyes, and let Black do what he would.

Only one thought came to him with any substance or clarity, and it was a question, the question that had been gnawing at him since this nightmare began. Perhaps it was a lifeline some deeper part of him threw to his wandering mind, a distraction, a chance to find some reason amidst the chaos. Or perhaps it was simply his nature, and his instinctive, abiding hatred of not knowing the answer, any answer, to anything.

“Why?” he whispered.

Black jerked in surprise. There was no confusion in his eyes — he seemed to know exactly what Severus was asking in that one anguished word — and no more anger, just stark, slack-jawed astonishment. His mouth worked in silence for a few seconds before any words managed to get out. “Are you fucking joking?”

Severus shook his head.

Black’s eyes swept over Severus’s face, fierce and searching. His surprised expression faltered, then crumbled, and now there was no mistaking the look he wore: it was horror. Severus actually saw the blood drain from his face.

That’s probably how I looked when they told me I was going to be fucked by a dog, he thought. For no more than a heartbeat or two, all of the emotions he’d suffered on this long, terrible night — the fear and the revulsion and the helpless, bewildered rage — came back to him and penetrated his eerie calm. His stomach heaved again, and his hands balled into fists. Then the storm passed.

Black let him go and pulled away.

Warily, Severus lifted his head. Black was sitting up, a foot or so away, still staring at him with that same sick wonder. “Oh, shit,” he said, and his voice sounded weary and weak. “You’re not joking, are you? You really don’t know.” He scrubbed a heavy hand over his eyes. “Oh, bloody fucking hell.”

Severus frowned. He didn’t know what Black was talking about. He hadn’t known what Black was talking about all night, and this answer was just as incomprehensible as the rest of the Gryffindor’s blatherings had been.

Fuck the answer, his logic voice said coldly. Just get out of here.

Severus swiped the hair from his eyes and backed away on all fours, until his butt hit the door and he could go no farther. Black made no move to stop him. “Let me go,” Severus whispered. It was not a threat; he told himself it was not a plea.

Black said nothing.

Severus turned and pressed his forehead to the door. He was shaking again, shaking so hard his teeth chattered, and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. He drew in great, whooping gasps of air that sounded and felt like sobs, but none of it seemed to reach his lungs. They ached. They burned. His vision blurred, and his head pounded. It was terrifying. It was also funny as hell: he had had his hands around Black’s throat, and he was the one who was going to suffocate.

“Stop it.” Black sounded scared again. “What are you doing? What the fuck is wrong with you? Stop doing that! Just breathe, for Christ’s sake!”

As if he wasn’t trying.

Panic rising in his throat, uncaring of what Black might do, Severus got to his knees and clawed at the doorknob. It turned with unexpected ease, and the door opened so abruptly that he fell forward across the threshold.

“No — wait — gods damn it, Snape, stop!”

Severus scrambled through the opening, trying to get to his feet — his thigh was still cramping horribly — and move forward at the same time. He felt Black’s hand close around his ankle and he kicked, ignoring the pain knifing through his leg as his foot connected with the top of Black’s head. Black uttered a low groan; the fingers around Severus’s ankle went limp, and Severus slid forward on his belly until he was completely out of the room.

The hall in which he found himself was unfamiliar, but it was typical Hogwarts: worn wood floors, ornate statuary, abysmal paintings of sleeping wizards and witches and knights and ladies fair. The drab normalcy of it all grounded him somewhat, and the panic eased its tight hold on him. His thoughts cleared; his trembling lessened; he found he could breathe again, and he did so in huge, grateful gulps, lying on his belly in the middle of gods-knew-where.

Black did not come after him. Perhaps he was knocked out. Perhaps he was even dead. Perhaps, in other circumstances, Severus would have actually cared enough to check.

Comments

This is a brilliant fanfiction. The characters seem so real and I really enjoyed this story. But this story with the dog...its just disgusting and unbelieveable. And the most unbelievable thing is this last " date" of Sirius and Snape when Sirius visites him to say hes sorry. How crazy must Snape be to let him into his bed after this disgusting story with the dog? How stupid must Sirius be to believe that his poor " I am sorry" can make a person apologize a rape??? Well, this moment is just so typical for fanfictions... he rapes him, he sais sorry and after that they have sex as if nothing happened.

You misunderstood. Snape doesn't forgive Black for the Padfoot rape. He pretends to, so that Black will have sex with him, because he plans to say Black raped him (when in reality, of course, it was his initiation as a Death Eater). He needs physical evidence that Black had sex with him.